Trotsky on the Ukrainian Problem

(May 1939)

The Fourth International must clearly understand the enormous
importance of the Ukrainian question in the fate not only of
Southeastern and Eastern Europe but also of Europe as a whole. We are
dealing with a people that has proved its viability, that is
numerically equal to the population of France and occupies an
exceptionally rich territory which, moreover, is of the highest
strategical importance. The question of the fate of the Ukraine has
been posed in its full scope.

A clear and definite slogan is necessary that corresponds to the
new situation. In my opinion there can be at the present time only
one such slogan: A united, free and independent workers’ and
peasants’ Soviet Ukraine ...

But the independence of a United Ukraine would mean the separation
of Soviet Ukraine from the USSR, the “friends” of the Kremlin
will exclaim in chorus. What is so terrible about that? we reply. The
fervid worship of state boundaries is alien to us. We do not hold the
position of a “united and indivisible” whole. After all, even the
constitution of the USSR acknowledges the right of its component
federated peoples to self-determination, that is, to separation.

Thus, not even the incumbent Kremlin oligarchy dares to deny this
principle. To be sure, it remains only on paper. The slightest
attempt to raise the question of an independent Ukraine openly would
mean immediate execution on the charge of treason. But it is
precisely this despicable equivocation, it is precisely this ruthless
hounding of all free national thought that has led the toiling masses
of the Ukraine, to an even greater degree than the masses of Great
Russia, to look upon the role of the Kremlin as monstrously
oppressive.

In the face of such an internal situation it is naturally
impossible even to talk of Western Ukraine voluntarily joining the
USSR as it is at present constituted. Consequently, the unification
of the Ukraine presupposes freeing the so-called Soviet Ukraine from
the Stalinist boot. In this matter, too, the Bonapartist clique will
reap what it has sown.